


Food For Thought

by xwetox



Category: Emma Approved
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-05
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 14:04:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1032558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xwetox/pseuds/xwetox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of stories that feature food in some context. Not in chronological order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sushi

**Author's Note:**

> This is odd. I haven't published anything in a couple of years. But after some hard deliberation, I decided to start publishing again. Enjoy.
> 
> For E and H. Thanks for the support.

By a miracle or by sheer willpower, Emma managed to maintain her professionalism for the five minutes it took to exit the Pemberley Digital offices and say goodbye to Sidney Parker. Like most things about her, however, it was only too good to be true.

“We did it!” She spun around to Alex. “ _Emma Approved_ is so approved!”

“It was a job well done.”

“‘Well done?’” She laughed. “I was brilliant in there! They adored me. Whenever I was speaking, their eyes were on me at all times.”

“They were on Sidney and me too.”

“But they partnered with my personality and determination.” She grinned mischievously. “We should celebrate!”

He sighed. “This is not the time to celebrate. We have a lot to get done to make this venture work and we aren’t anywhere near—”

“Blah, blah, blah, you can spare one hour from that boring stuff for lunch, can’t you?”

“Can we get it to-go?” She frowned and he rolled his eyes. He had to concede. “One hour.”

She already had her sunglasses on and was walking up the street. He followed after her. 

* * *

She picked sushi. It was a place her father recommended to her before they left for the meeting. He was, once again, on one of his stories that began with ‘In my travels…’, went on for a long time about his experiences in a city or a country 30 years ago, and ended with ‘But it’s much better here, please hurry back’. At the same time, it was a long-held tradition in Alex and Emma’s friendship to have a celebratory meal after a major accomplishment. He went to the same restaurant within the span of two days to celebrate the completion of his MBA, at her behest. When she finished her bachelor’s degree, she dragged him to a local sushi restaurant. A system developed in which he would pick one place, and she would consistently pick sushi. He knew it came from when she graduated, that she held it with more significance than she let on, so he let her have that one indulgence. One among many.

When Alex ordered water instead of green tea, she lectured him on green tea’s health benefits and why he should do what she did and order it with every meal at a Japanese restaurant. He had heard this speech so many times that he could predict her exact voice inflections, hand gestures, and even facial expressions—if he bothered to look up from the menu. He could imitate her mannerisms almost completely, he thought, but he was never one for imitation. Besides, why imitate when it was much easier—and more rewarding—to counter her arguments and stop her dead in her tracks? He let the lecture run its course, however, and nodded when she finished.

“You really should be much more health conscious,” she said, rehashing another favorite lament of hers concerning him.

He turned a page, still looking for a sushi roll he wanted to try. “I’m fine and healthy.”

“Not with the amount of take-out you eat.”

He looked up from his menu. “Have you been looking through my trash?”

It was her turn to pay attention to the menu. She held it in front of her and began turning the pages, not making eye contact with him. “I can see it when I walk past your office—and smell it, too.” She peeked over the menu. “I have the right to bring it up as your co-partner. And it’s so not Emma Approved.”

“Speaking of our business, we should start hiring some employees.” When it was clear she ignored him, he added: “I know it’s boring to you, but we need to talk about the positions we need, starting with an assistant.”

She put down the menu. “And I agree. See? We just talked about it.”

He was about to object when the server came to their table with their drinks and asked for their orders. As soon as she was gone, he forced the subject again.

“You also need to know what you’re looking for from these employees. Their work ethic, experience—”

“All of which you are clearly on top of!”

“No, it’s what you need to be on top of too. Co-partners, remember?”

“Oh, we can worry about all of that boring stuff later, can’t we?” She shifted in her seat, a sign of transitioning to a new topic of conversation because the current one bored her. “Aren’t you even a little bit happy you get to worry about all of this stuff because I won us that joint venture?”

He should have objected because 50% of that win firmly belonged to him and Sidney. Although their business model was far from perfect—and, to his chagrin, more easily accepted due to Emma’s charisma—it was workable and something the company had latched on to. Or he should have said that he wasn’t the working machine she always made him out to be, but that was just teasing anyway.

Instead, he gave an imperceptible nod and said, “But I did the important stuff.”

The wasabi and ginger dishes were placed on their table, which took her attention away from his subordination to the promise of food. As she began to mix the wasabi with soy sauce, she looked up at him with a determined look in her eye.

“This time, you aren’t going to—” She stopped short of rolling her eyes as he turned the two-sided dish of ginger and wasabi so the ginger was facing her. “Don’t you understand that it’s a palate cleanser between pieces and is highly beneficial to your health in these amounts? If you actually bothered eating the ginger we got with every sushi meal, you—”

This time, he cut her off. “I don’t need my…palate cleansed, Emma. Water is better at it anyway, and tastes a lot better too.”

“That’s the entire point of enjoying sushi though!” She put down her chopsticks and, at what he considered an unearthly speed, prepared her next rant. At least it would be somewhat new, he thought to himself as he settled in to listen to her. “Each piece of sushi may be cut from a roll, but each piece—” She gestured over imaginary pieces on an imaginary plate, “is uniquely its own. We must be able to distinguish all of the flavors in each piece, and we do that between pieces by eating a piece of pickled ginger. It’s a very overlooked, but essential process to really enjoying sushi.”

He couldn’t help but snicker. “Is this the fifth time you’ve seen that sushi movie?”

“Fourth, thank you very much,” she said, and looked away as if she were royalty. “It was a very inspirational and touching documentary,” she added when he didn’t stop snickering.

“Yes—the first time.”

“And every time after.” Her smile fell when she saw him shake his head. “You still don’t believe me about the ginger, do you? Well, I can prove it. Watch.”

The rolls of sushi arrived, and as he thanked her for bringing it to them, Emma pulled out her phone and began looking up what would prove her friend wrong beyond a doubt.

“Are we really going to do this?”

She handed the phone to him. “So you see, I was right. You don't give me enough credit. Where would you be without me?”

“‘Research cannot prove it,’” he said as the new web page he found finished loading. “I found a more reliable source for you. _Dr. Oz_ , really.” She stared at the web page in disbelief. “You were wrong, Emma.”

She shook her head. “No, no. There are health benefits. I’m practically right,” she said as she put away her phone and picked up a piece of sushi with her chopsticks.

“It’s still not enough to justify the taste—or force me to eat it.” He ate a piece of sushi and smiled. “Nice choice, Emma.”

“Thank you.”

“We could get better back home though.”

She frowned for a moment and put down her uneaten piece of sushi, only to pick up her cup of green tea and grinned broadly. “To our imminent success.”

He let her have this toast too.


	2. Soft Pretzels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted this up earlier in the week, but I got busy. That's probably going to be happening a lot. Hopefully I'll have something out on Thanksgiving week. I'm working toward it, slowly.
> 
> Thanks for reading and leaving kudos and subscribing.

Emma tapped a made-up rhythm against her notebook with her pencil and stared at the vector and vector-based word problems in her textbook, half of which Alex was now checking her work on. She turned her attention to him, but he was not nearly as pleased with her rhythm improvisation skills.

“Were you even listening to anything I was saying?”

“Of course I was!”

He sighed and shook his head. “You are the one who called me here—you told me it was a personal emergency—only to find out that you just needed a study buddy for your calculus midterm tomorrow! I have other things to do, you know!”

“You don’t think I do too? I wouldn’t have called you if I wasn’t in need of your help, believe me.”

“You’re right about that.” She rolled her eyes. “Seriously, your work is full of careless mistakes because you’re working way too fast through these problems.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Not when you’re sacrificing the correct answer.” He slid the papers across the table. “Just—work on the next set of problems, slowly. Then we’ll go over all of them together after you finish.”

That was one of her biggest problems even in high school, he thought. She hadn’t kicked her old habit of working through homework or tests and refusing to learn from the careless mistakes she made. Since she performed adequately in her subjects, she was never in any danger of failing courses, but the missed points on her assignments added up, and it always frustrated him whenever he would do these informal tutoring sessions with her. The sessions as a whole frustrated him, because she always made a point to refuse his help even after requesting it, and had an even harder time grasping the simplest concepts upon reviewing her mistakes.

She had never requested anything like this though. Asking for his help an entire 24 hours before the exam was definitely an improvement over calling him on Skype at 10 PM with far less than 12 hours to do last-minute studying. However, if she was only doing this to prolong his grief over her refusal to be helped in some weird sadistic plot, he wasn’t helping her even a week before a final exam for the rest of the year.

The next set of problems slid into his view within seven minutes, a slight improvement over her quick five minute submission of the first problem set. Once again, she clearly didn’t decide to work slowly, but there were still areas that improved.

“At least you’re not misplacing negative signs anymore,” he muttered.

“Good.”

“But you’re still forgetting to subtract some of your angles from 180 degrees so the answer is with respect to the x-axis.”

“What?!” She snatched the paper from his hands and scanned over her work quickly.

He studied her face, which was in a state of disbelief. “You need to focus. And we’re not getting anywhere like this.”

“Clearly,” she said and glared at him for that comment.

“I’m taking a break, and I suggest you do the same.” He rose from his seat to get his jacket.

“Hey, you still have to help me with the rest of this chapter!”

“And I will. But we’ve been studying like this for an hour and a half and you’re getting things wrong everywhere. Little things,” he added as she scrunched her face at him. “but it will add up to a lot and your grade will suffer.”

“My grade will be fine.”

“Hah, yeah, and you won’t remember any of it tomorrow when you sit down and take that midterm. And then your grade definitely won’t be fine. Stretch your legs, be healthy!”

She pouted. “That was the worst imitation of me you have ever done. You should be ashamed of yourself,” she said as she followed him. “Can I drive?”

“Oh no. We’re walking.”

“What?!”

* * *

She knew it was no longer a simple walk around the block when he began to make his way out of the neighborhood and to one of the main streets. She should have objected, dragged him back home and settled with studying more, but she knew if they’d gone on for much longer like that, she would have stabbed his hand with her pencil. Or taken that whiteboard marker he kept twirling between his fingers and that stupid mini-whiteboard just to see what his reaction would be. It wasn’t out of any particular resentment toward him, just boredom. But if she did anything like that, he’d probably leave, and she did need a good grade on this midterm. This was simply an indulgence for a long-term goal, she rationalized, nothing more.

“When you called me,” he said, “I was on my way to eat lunch. I think I told you that.”

“I did you a favor,” she replied. “You were probably going to eat something like McDonald’s or Burger King. And after we watched _Fast Food Nation_ too!”

He remembered. It was one of their movie nights near the beginning of the semester. He didn’t remember much of it besides the detached storytelling and Emma’s consistent state of shock at what she was witnessing. Still, she forced him to promise that he would never eat another burger from a fast-food restaurant again.

The next day, he ordered a hamburger combo from McDonald’s. She was dismayed when he told her.

“I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast. And since we need to get back to studying, it’s going to be to-go.”

She scoffed. “From where? There isn’t a fast-food restaurant here within a five-minute walking distance. Highbury is, thankfully, too good for fast-food.”

He sighed. “You think too highly of this place sometimes.”

“Excuse me? As my hometown—and let me remind you, yours—you should show way more respect than you are right now. It is home. I couldn’t imagine leaving it for anywhere else, because there isn’t another place that can be better.”

“No, you just can’t imagine anything different in your life.”

“Oh really? Can you? You commuted to college like I am now! You haven’t even left the country.”

“And neither have you. So we’re even.”

She sulked visibly for a minute and then returned to her calm, collected self, refusing to let on the doubt that began to form in her. How could he assume that she didn’t want more from life? He knew she needed to be her father’s anchor to the earth—that was her biggest priority and nothing took precedence over that. She glanced at Alex. He put on faces like she did. Didn’t he understand her situation at all? Not just as a fellow commuter, but—most importantly—her life-long friend? His face didn’t show it. But to assume that her love for Highbury meant she was settling with this town was a new low. She had to be in the town to help the town—after all, who didn’t want to take care of their home? He had to understand that. He had to.

* * *

Their destination was a local Jamba Juice on the end of the Highbury main road. She was mildly pleased with his choice; it was much healthier than his usual fast-food. But when she asked which smoothie he was getting, he shook his head. Her pouting was to no avail. Not even being allowed to order first made her happy.

“You won’t change your mind?” she asked him.

He shook his head, chuckled lightly, and approached the counter to order whatever carb disaster he was craving. That was all Jamba Juice ever offered anyway: flatbreads, breakfast burritos, low-quality, cheap food. He always ate the worst food—it was a wonder he was as fit as he was. She tried to remember if he had a gym membership, but nothing came to mind.

He was carrying a brown paper package filled with the offending food and holding several paper napkins in one hand. As they began walking back home, he used one of the napkins to pull out a thick pretzel and bit into it. To her surprise, he used another napkin, pulled out a second pretzel, and held it out to her after barely transferring the empty bag to the hand holding his own pretzel.

Her eyes widened and she looked up at him. “You know I’m on a low-carb diet, don’t you? I can’t have anything like this.”

He nearly spat out his pretzel. Instead, he fully bit into the pretzel and put the rest of it back into the packaging. “A low-carb diet? Emma, it’s just a pretzel.”

“‘Just a pretzel’? Obviously you’re planning to ruin my grade in my calculus course by giving me food that goes against my diet! Even after I was studying so well! How could you?”

He wanted to roll his eyes. Not everything he did was some plan to ruin her life, as she always seemed to think he was doing. He was almost ready to give up on her and eat both of them. But he restrained himself and said in an even tone: “It’s just a pick-me-up. You’ll need it for the next hour or so.”

“Fine.” She took the pretzel from his hand. “Only because you asked so nicely.” She didn’t give the pretzel back after the first bite, which was a good sign. If she really didn’t like it, she would have given it back to him to eat.

He reached for his own pretzel once more, but stopped. “Emma,” he began, but paused.

He thought of any number of things he could say. Why did she ask him over to study? Why did she refuse his help? Did she still want coffee? Had she even declared a major yet? But he realized, as more questions went through his mind, their answers didn’t matter right now. None of these answers would give him any satisfaction, and she would only dodge the questions as always, hiding her answer behind wit that concealed whatever she was actually feeling. In that way, she was an enigma, but only superficially so. These questions needed answers, and she couldn’t put off answering them forever, but…there was always a time for everything. He could wait.

Yet, one thing did matter, and he knew it would matter to her too, despite any reaction to the contrary.

“I forget how important Highbury is to you sometimes. I’m sorry.” When she didn’t respond, he continued: “You’ll be fine tomorrow. You know what you’re doing, surprisingly. You just need to go more slowly and check your work.”

She smiled slightly. “I know.” She continued eating her pretzel.

He side-eyed her, trying to figure out whether she was being serious or not, but gave up and reached for his pretzel once more.

Besides, he already knew what she meant.


	3. Dark Chocolate Gelato

Emma stared down at the tubs and boxes of various desserts in the freezer section of the local market and sighed. This was the first time in a long time she had been to the desserts section of the market—at least, when she was in this mood. It had never been this bad though, not in recent memory. She could only see him turning away and walking out of the office. A ‘happy Thanksgiving’ that received no reply. Everything else was a blur, though. She should have been looking at his face more closely. It must have been clearly written on his face that she was crossing a line yet again. She wouldn’t be Emma Woodhouse if she didn’t cross those lines, she reassured herself. Lines were meant to be redrawn and defined clearly.

Yet at the moment when it counted, she had failed to respect herself. That was what hurt her the most. Her sharp witticisms and replies that never failed to stump her opponent—even a close friend—did not suggest themselves in the moment. Because Alex was wrong. The sheer idiocy of his statement must have hit her harder than she thought it did. Never settling did not mean a life alone. It was definitely not turning down nice guys out of some far-flung ego trip, which was clearly what he was thinking. It was listening to your inner self. It was knowing yourself so intimately that when Mr. Right came along, or The Right Thing For The Right Time, that it would be snapped up in an instant because that was a piece of happiness. And happiness is not forthcoming. It must be taken.

Alex knew that was her philosophy. He knew this was what kept her going when bad things followed each other at heady speed. And he decided to disregard all of that, again. He would disregard so much of what he knew—or what he should remember—for one thing in the moment. That was his problem, and she was always patient with him and went the extra mile to reorganize his priorities. She would wait this time, though.

For her failure to come up with a retort, to not immediately make him see the error of his thoughts, she knew she should deny herself the desserts she was staring at. She picked up a quart of dark chocolate gelato and walked to the express lane. 

* * *

She was sitting on a stool at the kitchen island when she finished formatting and queuing tomorrow’s Thanksgiving recipes post. The reply email to Annie about the post came naturally to her: a formal thank you, a few questions asking after her health, Ryan, and shopping ideas. She checked her phone for the third time that hour, exhaled sharply, and put it back in its place by the laptop.

She mulled over her turns of phrase in that conversation while waiting for the gelato to defrost. Ostensibly, it was to objectively analyze where she could improve in future conversations. She made a mental note to use the Pony Express joke at another time in the future; it was a little obscure, but it worked wonderfully as long as the person understood what it meant. She had anticipated he would catch on to her scheme quickly, but when she reached the ‘settling’ part, everything short circuited. She did most of her best work face-to-face—why did she ignore such an obvious path in front of a baited future audience?

“I hope you aren’t considering eating right out of the container.”

She smiled and turned around. “Of course not daddy.”

He smirked and walked to her side. “Then why is there only one spoon on the table?” He went to a cabinet and pulled out a small bowl and another spoon. They were grouped with the gelato and moved closer to the both of them.

“Daddy, you shouldn’t—”

He enigmatically smiled and shook his head as he slowly sat on the stool next to her. “How is the business?”

On command, her posture improved as she began to relay to him information about office upkeep, her new high profile client, and the blog and documentary, pointedly avoiding any talk of Alex. He nodded as he began scooping gelato into the bowl, and when he was done, he asked:

“And Mr. Knightley is—”

“Fine.” As she scooped some gelato from the bowl, she slowly realized the mistake she had made with her reply.

He set aside his spoon. “He’s been helping you out enough, right?”

She nodded. “He disagrees often, but we compromise—in my favor, of course.”

He chuckled, and as he held back louder laughter, his eyes crinkled. She knew he was finding her actions hilarious—again—and frowned. “Emma, don’t push him around too much.”

“I don’t push him around! I—gently guide him to my perspective.”

“Remember, the point of a partnership—”

“Is to make sure what you do works to both parties’ advantages, I know. And I always have other people’s best interests at heart to make a partnership work. I wouldn’t have a 20 for 20 success rate if I wasn’t good at that.” She steadily inhaled and ate more gelato, waiting for his reply. Maybe this time, he would see that she did have a handle on the situation and hadn’t failed him with today’s events.

“Well,” he said, and got off the stool. “I’ll be getting back. If you need to talk…”

“Daddy, don’t worry.” She put her hand on his shoulder and massaged it lightly. “I’m fine.”

He gave that enigmatic smile again before shuffling out of the kitchen and back to his office.

As she was putting away the gelato, she noticed that he never used his spoon and all of the gelato in the bowl was gone. He must have been examining her actions more carefully than she first estimated. And he must have also noticed that she ate that much. But he was wrong. That was an indicator of absolutely nothing about her emotional state. She was so far from wallowing about today. She was positively flushed with pride that she was putting Harriet on a course for success. State Senator Elton would be coming in for his first consultation—and the next phase of Harriet’s betterment would commence. After Thanksgiving, she would approach Harriet with the master plan to pique the senator’s interest. Then, everything would begin falling into place.

As she began to enact the plan in her head once again, her phone buzzed. It was from exactly who she was expecting it to be from. It should have contained exactly what she was expecting too, until she read the message in full. She was reading it for a second time when the phone vibrated in her hand again. The display finally dimmed, then went to black.

There was no reason to be upset, really. This was meant to happen, with how everything had unfolded, and it would only make any attempt to grant forgiveness—after much resistance—that much sweeter. She looked in the direction of her father’s office. He deserved to know. The texts came back to her.

(I’m going rock climbing in Joshua Tree tomorrow. I probably won’t make it for dinner. Happy Thanksgiving.)

Tomorrow. He deserved to know in the morning.

As she picked up her things and began to walk past her father’s office, she stopped and, after a moment’s hesitation, made a quarter turn to face the open office. There were important things to do, and they weren’t done by wallowing in sadness, even for a night. She knocked on the door twice.

“Daddy?”

He was seated in a swivel chair, back facing her. The seat turned so he was facing her, and she saw his smile.

**There was no reason to be upset.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last week, a close friend of my family unexpectedly passed away. I started this last Tuesday, when I found out. I was hoping to have it done before the Thanksgiving dinner I went to, but that didn't happen, and I needed the information provided in today's episode to finish it. I don't like it when personal events influence my writing, but it was important that I published this anyway. It's mostly unedited, but I didn't want to hold on to it anymore. So if it's worse than usual, that's why.
> 
> Thanks for reading and subscribing and leaving kudos.


	4. Celery Soda

The small fire in the Princeton Tower Club’s coatroom fireplace threatened to be extinguished when the doors burst open and, with a group of Tower Club members, let in a strong winter wind until they were closed again. The fire regained its strength and continued to grow. The large, yet relatively subdued population of students, after a reshuffling of papers temporarily caught in the wind, went back to studying or socializing. Meanwhile, James Elton moved to the end of the couch and continued reading for his political science course.

It was when he heard six taps on the small coffee table in front of him that he looked up from his reading to see six green cans emblazoned with turn-of-the-century type lined up in a row in front of him.

“Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray,” he read out loud.

“Also known as Jewish champagne,” his friend Lucas said as he plopped onto the opposite couch next to his fraternal twin sister Rachel. “Liquid god-juice.” James nodded and returned to his reading. “I walked ten miles in the snow to get this to you!”

“Uh huh.”

“So I drove to McCaffrey’s. Same thing.”

“It’s only a mile out.” James highlighted a sentence in his book. “You should have walked. It would have been good for you.”

“Ha-ha, forget politics. Look out, James Elton: The Next Late-Night Comedian!” One of Lucas’s friends reached out to grab one of the cans when Lucas’s hand darted out in front of them. “No touchy.”

“If you didn’t want anyone to touch it, you should have taken it back to the dorm.”

Lucas rolled his eyes. “I brought this here because I have the greatest proposition for you.” James sunk back into the couch and stared at the ceiling. Lucas’s last ‘greatest proposition’ involved streaking in front of the Ivy Clubhouse and failing to be caught by the bouncer, or taking the milder fate of having root beer at every meal in Tower for a week. And this was only a few Fridays ago. “You’re going through a rough time, I know. Claire has officially been taken in by the Ivy goons and left you high and dry.”

“That’s not true,” Rachel said. “You both need to cut her some slack. It’s hard being in Ivy.”

“Be that as it may,” Lucas continued, pointedly ignoring his sister. “you haven’t talked to each other in nearly a week. You’re all but broken up, and I am going to help you make it official. Ask any girl in this room out to Friday’s party, and you win eternal bragging rights as Tower’s numero uno womanizer, even though I graciously hold that title. If you lose, you drink up.” He gestured to the line of green cans on the coffee table. “Simple.”

“Over a week?” James asked.

“Tonight.”

“And what will you do with the soda if I win?”

Lucas laughed. “I’ll donate it to the good people here.”

“I doubt anyone will take it,” Rachel said. “Celery soda is one of the most disgusting drinks out there. Lord knows why he likes it so much.”

“Then I will drink it.”

“And not mind it, of course.”

By usual standards, this proposition was tame. It would be unbelievably easy to ask a girl out; James knew any number of girls in this room who had asked him out despite knowing he already had a girlfriend. Any of them would say yes. Rachel, most notably, didn’t seem attracted to him. Lucas probably wouldn’t mind if he did end up asking Rachel out. But he could also interpret it as what it was: an easy out. And Rachel hated being reduced to a pawn in their bets, which happened more often than James cared to admit. Perhaps Lucas knew too, but if he did, he didn’t care enough to stop it. Still, the bet was tame for a reason; Lucas was a methodical guy, like most people in Tower. This was all carefully calculated so James could date someone else besides Claire for the first time since high school—and there was pressure to do so—but there was an out that only involved drinking six cans of celery soda, thereby getting James to finally try what he downed as much as beer. A light punishment for not conforming. But worse was waiting on the horizon of his social life from his peers if he continued doing nothing.

“He doesn’t need to make anything official, especially not through something stupid like this,” Rachel said. “What he needs to do is talk it out with her. It’s something normal people in a normal relationship do.” At which point, she turned to her brother and glared. “Not like you’d know anything about that.”

“I don’t think you’ve noticed, but we’re far from normal people.”

“Oh my God, that is just like you.”

“I’m just stating f—”

“Guys,” James said. “I have reading I need to get done for tomorrow. And although I appreciate the unsolicited advice, I can sort out my problems on my own. I’ll pay you back for the soda.” He began to dig through his backpack for his wallet.

“No way,” Lucas said. “The bet is still on.”

James pulled out his cellphone first and checked the time and opened his text message inbox. “Don’t be ridiculous, it was never—” Against his better judgment, he opened both messages. After reading them over for a few seconds, he looked up, opened his mouth, but closed it again and furrowed his brow. “I have to go.” He threw his book and highlighter into his backpack and quickly slung it over his shoulder.

Lucas was still registering the shock of his departure when Rachel followed him to the coat rack, where James was putting on his coat.

“Tell her I said hey.” When James was about to interject, Rachel smirked. “Not even my brother in mortal peril could get you going anywhere this fast. Just don’t do anything stupid.”

He grinned. “Thanks.” He rushed out the door and into the light snowfall.

When Rachel fell back onto the couch next to her brother, she was met with a noise of disgust.

“He hasn’t bailed on our bet. I’m still keeping these out here. For the whole night if I have to,” he said.

The same friend reached out to grab one of the soda cans, and Lucas once again stopped him from grabbing it. “No touchy!”

Rachel smirked and pulled out her phone. She had a message to respond to.

* * *

James ran to the end of the street toward the campus center and caught his breath. She would be right around the corner, right where she was meant to be, under a streetlamp across from the campus center. She must have finished a club meeting there, so she’d probably be shouldering a backpack as well, perhaps holding a cup of coffee. She would be wearing her favorite clothing, her favorite scarf, her favorite winter coat, and her favorite boots and gloves. She’d stare at him turning the corner, her breath would catch, and he’d walk to her, slowly. He would not embrace her. He would approach her, and they would say hello, and after an awkward silence, begin to talk again. Wherever the conversation went after that would determine whether he would win or lose his bet, he decided.

When he turned the corner, he saw her already waiting on the sidewalk by the light. As usual, she was on time while he was late. As he walked to her, he coolly appraised her. Yes, she had a backpack on, but was not holding a cup of coffee. Yes, she had on her favorite scarf, but not her other favorite clothing that he had in mind. Her breath did not catch; he could tell because the visible traces of her breathing came steadily out of her nose. And she was not smiling.

“James,” she said.

He corrected his slightly slouched posture. “Claire.”

“I’m glad you’ve come. Really.” He nodded, and they began to walk in the direction he came in. “I should have called you sooner. I’m sorry about that.”

“No, I should have.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

Her hushed voice made him hesitate for a moment. “I didn’t know I should.”

They stopped at the corner of the street. The look on her face indicated he had made a grave mistake. “James, you’re the one that walked out of the dinner last week. I couldn’t even get an explanation out of you when I had to discreetly excuse myself to see you out. Remember?” He didn’t respond. “I need to know what’s going on. Tell me.”

Although he tried to suppress his anger, his voice still developed a strong edge. “No, I need to know what’s going on. You’ve changed ever since you got into Ivy. You’re dressing differently, we hardly meet anymore, and when we do, it’s at parties where I have to see you willingly debase yourself for those self-entitled idiots!”

Her blank face terrified him. Its lack of emotion led him to imply every emotion was on there. “James, I have to do this. And you know as well as I do that you could have chosen Ivy instead of Tower.”

“And you could have chosen Tower instead of Ivy.”

“No, I couldn’t have. Do you know how few women Ivy accepts? Minorities, even? It’s rare, very rare. Don’t you see a problem with that?”

“What? What does that have to do with me watching you at these parties being nothing but the most charitable woman there, only to subject yourself to guys who blatantly grope you in my sight?”

“It’s an occupational hazard.”

“Claire, these clubs are not a job.”

“They’re a lifeline.”

“They don’t have to be.” She quickened her walking pace, and as he caught up, he tried to entreat with her once again. “Claire, it’s never too late to drop out of the club. You can just bicker and get into another one. You can join me in Tower.”

She turned back to him on her heel. “I don’t exist to appease you!”

The silence was even more deafening as she tried to gather herself. “Do you think I’m proud of my behavior?” she asked, her voice quavering. “Do you think I don’t know what I’m subjecting myself to every time I walk through that gate? It’s an image, James. You should know that it can make or break me. And they’re breaking you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You don’t get it?” She laughed. Normally it was light and happy, but as he heard it, it was hollow and scornful. “Why do you think they did what they did on Saturday? How convenient it was that you happened to see it.”

He expected more from her, but she stopped there. She was likely letting her statements hang in the air so he could understand what she was saying. And he did, but the implications were almost impossible to grasp. “No one is that vindictive.”

She was settling back into her calm and collected self, the way the conversation had started. “Everyone can be, given the situation. And I don’t blame you for not understanding. But you understand now. This is not a game. This is beyond some extra-curricular that I can put on my résumé for future jobs or grad school. These are the politics of our lives.”

She always dreamed big. This was how most of her goals worked. Lofty plans that were intertwined with the ‘politics of our lives’. Elaborate engineering to achieve these goals. He knew all along this conversation could only head to that fundamental part of her personality. “But this is breaking you. Anyone can see that.”

“You’re wrong. This is part of who I am. I need to fight for this.”

“For what? What could be worth doing that puts your dignity at risk?”

Her lips formed more of a smirk than a smile at his behavior. “This has always been how we work. As friends, as a couple. I will always go down the path I think will help to achieve what I want to achieve. And I don’t expect you to agree with my decisions. But I do expect your support, as one of my oldest friends and my boyfriend. I have asked a lot of you, maybe too much. But this is one of the most important things I have ever done in my life, and I will not back out of it. If you do, I will understand.” She reached for his arm, and gently laid her hand on his upper arm. “I will always give you my support. Whatever happens after this, I will still be there for you as a friend.” And this time, she genuinely smiled.

He couldn’t help but smile as well. “Keep your dignity in there. And let’s make more time to actually go out.”

“James, this is Princeton. There’s nothing here.”

“Then we’ll go out to an actual city.” She laughed again, this time in the way she always laughed, like the cold around them was actually the spring. “May I be so honored as to have you accompany me back to Tower?”

“The honor would be mine. But isn’t it getting late?”

“I need to talk to Lucas quickly, and then we’ll go.” He side-eyed her mischievously as they walked back to the street where the Tower clubhouse was. “Since when did it matter to you how long I stayed up?”

She laughed again as he lightly bumped into her as they walked back. 

* * *

James made a beeline for the couch in the coatroom, where Lucas and Rachel were still sitting, but wrapped up in their respective phones. Lucas noticed him first.

“Hey, where have you been? We still have a bet to finish.”

“I know.” James picked up a can and opened it. Before anyone could stop him—not that anyone would want to—he began to chug the drink. He almost choked on the first sip, but by the time he was halfway through the second can, he was really enjoying the refreshing bitterness of the drink. When he finished off the third can, he grinned. “I happily lose.”

“You didn’t even enjoy it!” Lucas frowned and fell back into the couch. James was packing the last three unopened cans into his backpack. “Hey, wait! I said all six cans tonight!”

“You didn’t say anything about when during the night. Besides, there’s someone waiting for me outside I want to share these with.” He paused as he zipped up his backpack. “They’re not as bad as I was expecting, actually.”

Lucas barely smiled for a second. “You sly fucker.”

“So everything’s okay?” Rachel asked.

“We compromised, so, for now,” James said.

She smiled and sat up a little straighter. “Better than never.”

He smiled. “See you both tomorrow.”

Rachel waved to him as he exited the clubhouse.

“I can’t believe he cheated me out of that bet! Nobody cheats me out of a bet!” Lucas said.

“Aren’t you glad to see him happy again?”

Lucas rolled his eyes. “He’d have killed the party spirit if he kept moping around like that.”

Rachel ran her hands through his hair and grabbed a clump to shake his head around lightly. “Idiot.”

Outside, James dug back into his backpack to pull out a can of celery soda and gave it to Claire.

“Cel-Ray?” she asked.

“Trust me, it’ll surprise you.”

She opened the can and sipped the soda. She smacked her lips thoughtfully before saying: “I can see the appeal.” She handed the can back to him, and he drank from it as well.

“I have two more cans in my backpack.” He offered the can to her, and she sipped from it again.

“Okay, yes, I do like it! Don’t look at me so expectantly like that!” she conceded.

“After two sips?”

“Is that hard to believe?”

He searched her face for a hint of duplicity, but it was hard to see under the few streetlights. “I guess not.”

“Do you want to get some hot chocolate to warm up?” she asked as they reached the street corner they had walked down not too long ago. “Then we can go back to my place for the night.”

“Sure.”

He didn’t think twice about why she asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and reviewing and leaving kudos.


	5. Hot Chocolate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Excuse the untimely delay. This was meant to be released during the first hiatus.

Emma Woodhouse needed time. So it followed that Alex made a point to turn off the camera and help her reorganize the office. They proceeded mostly in silence, only talking to ask where certain things should go. He knew if she was more possessed, she would take to the furniture. Nearly every finals week, he would see through a slightly ajar door that she had moved her small bookshelf against a different wall, or taken the books on that bookshelf off and pushed them against a wall on her bedside table. Once, he even saw her old bedside table in a guest room. A chest of drawers was doubling as her bedside table that time. He had never been told explicitly that it was her way to de-stress, but she never did the best job of hiding it. She was never in the right mindset to.

She wasn’t possessed enough to begin rearranging the furniture, however. In fact, once they were done, they sat side by side slumped on the couch, staring at the ceiling.

“Maddy’s waiting.”

“I came from there, Emma.” He saw out of the corner of his eye that she reacted to this with a pair of furrowed eyebrows.

They don’t break the silence for another minute. He knows because he’s counting the seconds. He’s trying to gauge her.

(Does she notice?)

“Do you want any?” He shook his head absently; he hadn’t heard what she was asking about. His eyes didn’t leave her retreating figure until she was out of the office.

He was trying to take stock of the situation.  He turned away from numbers. What were the facts? Facts were that Emma’s pet project failed spectacularly. Facts were that after listening to Maddy Bates talk about how much she enjoyed the party last night and oh, she didn’t mind being in the offices on a Sunday, there were bigger tables to work at for wrapping books, that was absolutely necessary to make sure the wrapping be airtight and wouldn’t fall apart en route to Jane, that they meandered to Emma and even Elton for a split second. That was what got him thinking about going to the offices, taking a chance she’d be in and not where she usually was on a Sunday: with her father. He still remembered how taken aback she looked last night at the senator’s every action, then how her face took on that look that was always in her eyes, the steeled determination that was making her work circles to execute a master plan. It stood to reason that she would be in the offices after a catastrophic failure like last night, working out that master plan on the conference room whiteboard.

He was only off about where she was.

Anyone could recognize the senator’s car. Anyone could recognize the senator tearing out of the building to the car lot, getting into his car, and speeding away from a window. Alex recognized all of this.

It wouldn’t be hard to get up from the couch, go over to her computer, hook up the camera, and review the footage it captured. It would give him all of the facts. It would tell him everything, and he could probably do it in the time it was taking for her to get whatever it was that she was getting. But Emma was not someone who was closed off. She always reached out, she always talked, she always held a hand out—even if her other hand was snaking around someone’s back and arranging things to go her way.

He closed his eyes and shook his head, hoped the thought of going behind her back would disappear as well.

She was at the doorway. There was nothing in her hands. “I,” she cleared her throat. “forgot I gave the juice to Harriet.” A pause. “I’m going to get some for her.”

“I’ll drive.”

* * *

She drove.

“We should go car shopping sometime,” she said.

“What’s wrong with this car?”

“It’s old.”

“It’s fine.”

“I won’t drive you when your car finally breaks down.”

It was a long time since they were in this position; her driving his car. It must have been when she was still preparing for her driver’s test, probably in her first year of university. As soon as she got her own car, his days of Emma driving his car, even being in his car ended. He didn’t miss her.

(Her comebacks aren’t as good. He missed that for a second.)

He was thankful for the low hum of Christmas music from the car radio. It gave much needed noise in what would have been heavy silences. He was also thankful for her steady hands and clear eyes. She was never one to let a bad thing keep her out of a full day’s work or break into amateur dramatics, like getting lost or crying at the wheel. That was a long time ago anyway, thinking this while simultaneously recalling the time she was so distracted that she almost entered a freeway’s exit—until she swerved out of the lane, slamming his head against the window, and began laughing about how she’d heard all of his cries to not die today and would remember them for the glorious time she would need his services. He rubbed the spot where his head slammed into the window and grimaced.

He _really_ didn’t miss her in his car.

* * *

He was in the driver’s seat after their short and almost unbearably tense shopping trip. At first, he walked with her along the refrigerated aisle as she looked for the juice. They were going so slow, and she was completely lost to her own thoughts. He even managed to slip away and pick up a few things of his own before rejoining her. It wasn’t hard to rejoin her either; she was wandering along the same aisle, looking at the yogurts available. She vaguely acknowledged his return.

“Back to the office?” It looked as if she did something between a shrug and a shake of her head.

That was how they ended up at his home, her juice in his fridge (“It needs to be refrigerated Alex!”), and Emma herself sitting on his couch, legs tucked in toward her body. Once again, he had Christmas music playing softly in the background.

“I bought some hot chocolate mix at the store.” When she didn’t respond, he added: “Will a mug of two-percent instead of almond milk kill you?”

“No, but another mug won’t do you any good.” She awkwardly laughed after saying this, and he laughed as well.

For a few minutes, the hum of the microwave took over. When he finally gave her the mug of hot chocolate and sat next to her on the couch, he was still no further in trying to get her to talk more about today.

“You’ve been really quiet,” she said, after sipping her hot chocolate.

“You’re one to talk,” he replied. He shouldn’t have chosen such a sardonic tone. Her face fell quickly into a deep frown.

“There’s nothing you want to say to me? Nothing to ask me? Nothing to mock me about?”

“Emma—”

“I wouldn’t blame you anymore, I deserve it.” She tapped her fingernails against the mug. “You were right, Alex Knightley. Congratulations.”

She took a large gulp of the hot chocolate. He watched silently as she nearly choked on the hot drink, close her eyes, and cough violently as she set the mug aside.

She was going out of control. His usual method of letting her talk endlessly and picking up clues from what she said wasn’t going to work this time.

“We should watch something.” He was reaching for the remote in front of him when she intercepted it and set it on her side of the couch. She glared at him petulantly.

“You obviously have something you want to say to me, so why don’t you just say it already?”

“Emma, there’s nothing I have to say to you!” The tone of his voice caught him by surprise as much as it did her, for she shifted in her spot and her eyes snapped out of their glare. “There’s nothing I can say to you that you aren’t already telling yourself in your head. Mistakes happen, records get broken, people walk away from things unhappy. The important thing is to move forward. You’d be telling anyone in your position to keep moving forward.” She seemed ready to object again. “Do you remember when you were suspended? For the first few months, things were bleak. The world might as well have ended for you—I know because you told me. A lot. But your father, Izzy, I, supported you. Soon, you were supporting yourself, and you improved as a person. You have this ability to rebound from failures and make them successes. I have friends whose lives were destroyed by their failures, and none of them make a comeback like you.

“Yes, you misled Elton, but he had every intention to mislead you as well. He wanted your affection—maybe your influence, but whatever his end goal, he was going to do the same thing you were doing to him, even if it was on Harriet’s behalf. We’re all here. We can help you, however long it takes.”

It was almost like he was back in business school, giving presentations for start-ups that lasted twenty minutes and were forty-five percent of the final course grade. This was less than a minute, but it was worth much more than forty-five percent of a course grade.

She remained silent.

Maybe sixty percent, he thought.

“Thank you,” she said after the long silence.

“You would say the same thing to anyone else. Now can we watch something?”

* * *

They were parked in the driveway of Emma’s house near midnight. She was clutching the grocery bag handles tightly and stared unflinchingly at the lit window of her father’s study.

“Would you be able to keep everything going if I took a break for a while?”

Alex blinked and suppressed his surprise at her question. “Of course.”

“I’m not asking for more than a month.”

“Okay.”

“I’m going to help myself get back to what I do best.”

“Okay.”

“Stop saying that.”

“Emma.”

“Just say I’m taking time off for personal reasons.”

“ _Emma_.”

She finally looked away from the window to him. “Too vague?”

“You don’t need my permission for a break, Emma, I’m not your father. All you need to do is give me fair warning, which you just did. We won’t go dark if you decide to take a break after everything that’s happened. I’ll keep the blog running while you’re gone too.”

Her eyes widened. “I need to write some posts for you before I go.”

“Hey, I can write posts myself!”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.” He reached across her and opened the passenger side door for her. “Your dad will be up all night waiting for you at this rate. You can take a break for no more than a month, the company won’t fail while you’re gone, and I’ll keep our internet presence alive and well by writing blog posts in your place. I can email them to you so you can approve them before being posted. If you don’t like any of them, you can let me know then.”

She smiled. “I’ll think about it. Thank you for today.”

“It’s what you would have done.”

She unfastened her seatbelt and walked to the front door. She waved goodbye before unlocking the door and entering the house. She didn’t close the passenger side door all the way. Of course. After painful stretching to reach from his seat to close it, he rapped his fingers on the wheel before pulling out of the driveway to go home.

_It’s what you would have done._

That would be an excellent bumper sticker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After half a year, it's done. Most of it has been written for months now, but I was stuck trying to finish it. Writing to attempt to sleep apparently works wonders for story blocks. 
> 
> In light of how weak my enthusiasm has been for this show, I can't say how many more chapters I have left in me. I have some ideas in my head about Jane, and I may do more things for the time between the first and second hiatuses, but this is where I am for now. I always said not to expect consistent updates, and this is what I meant. I still apologize, and thank you for your patience.

**Author's Note:**

> As a warning, chapters won't be published very quickly. I'm a really slow writer, and I'm still getting back into the swing of it without wanting to immediately delete it. 
> 
> Thanks for reading.


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